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It was 5:30am on a Monday morning, 25 year-old Tunji, who lives in Iyana Ipaja, a Lagos suburb, put on his overall jacket, safety boots and helmet; picked up his tool box filled with spanners, hammers, screws, screwdrivers and pliers, marks of his trade. He is determined to master his new trade – auto-mechanic.
Tunji is a graduate of economics and whilst in school he had some side hustles. Sometimes he sold cloths and at other times, especially during holidays he supplied charcoal to restaurant owners in various parts of Osun state.
Tunji graduated with a Bachelor of Science (2:1) in Economics from a state university. His first job when he graduated at the age of 23 years was with a bank but lost the job after 18 months because when Africa’s most populous nations went through a recession, in 2016, the bank decided to layoff some staff. Tunji realised first-hand how fragile white collar jobs can be and decided to learn some vocational skills, possible for him because he was still young unlike older victims. He wanted to take his destiny into his own hands.
Tunji is not unique in this position. The National Bureau of Statistics estimates that 7.5 million Nigerians were unemployed between January 2016 and December 30, 2017.
The economically active population or working age population (persons within ages 15 and 64) increased from 108.03 million to 108.59 million, this represents a 0.50 percent increase over the previous quarter (third quarter of 2016) and a 3.40 percent increase when compared to the fourth quarter in 2015. In the fourth quarter of 2016, the labour force population (that is, those within the working age population willing, able and actively looking for work) increased to 81.15 million from 80.67 million in Q3 2016, representing an increase of 0.60 percent in the labour force during the quarter.
“We have lost over 10 million jobs in the last two years partly because investors perceive Nigeria as an uncertain investment environment. Partly because our economic policies have not been swift and proactive enough to deal with the avoidable situations that led us into the recession” Teslim-Shitta-Bey, a former investment banker said in a closed door meeting.
Nigerian workers have been long-suffering. The National Minimum Wage has remained at N18, 000 since 2010, despite inflationary pressures, which have eroded the value of the naira and sent prices northward. Headline inflation was 13.34 in March 2018, down from 14.33 in February.
However, cost of food in Nigeria increased 16.08 percent in March of 2018 over the same month in the previous year. Food Inflation in Nigeria averaged 11.51 percent from 1996 until 2018, reaching an all-time high of 39.54 percent in September of 2001 and a record low of -17.50 percent in January of 2000.
This is noteworthy because data from the World Economic Forum (WEF), a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland, show that over half of Nigeria’s households spend half their household income on food, and there are nine other countries that spend over 40 percent on food such as: Nigeria 56.40 percent; Kenya 46.70 percent; Cameroon 45.60 percent; and Algeria 42.50 percent. It implies the Nigerian worker, after paying for groceries has little left for to save, this in turn slows down the rate of capital formation and local investment fund pools in the economy. Access to quality healthcare and education is alas, outreach to most Nigeria workers.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
